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"Our research shows that negative emotions that linger after even minor, daily stressors have important implications for our long-term physical health," says psychological scientist Kate Leger of the University of California, Irvine. "When most people think of the types of stressors that impact health, they think of the big things, major life events that severely impact their lives, such as the death of a loved one or getting divorced," Leger says. "But accumulating findings suggest that...

Two states are moving closer to legislation that would allow child welfare officials to immediately move newborns exposed to opioids toward adoption, an effort meant to address the growing number of children entering foster care due to neglect or abuse related to drug use. In Kentucky, a broader child welfare bill focused on family preservation also included a caveat to terminate parental rights unless a parent was willing to enroll in treatment. Arizona’s legislature has passed a bill that...

It was January 2006 and Josef Kirk Fischl was tucked away behind a 30-foot-high gray wall in C Block, one of Attica Correctional Facility's toughest cellblocks. He had already served more than 16 years on a 25-to-life bid for a murder he committed when he was 19. At the time, Fischl was sporting dreadlocks down his back. One day, filing out to the yard, he walked through a gauntlet of corrections officers holding wooden batons, their arms sleeved in tattoos—skulls, dragons, spider webs...

In July 1967 , when President Lyndon B. Johnson formed a commission to analyze the riots then engulfing several major American cities, the radical wing of the civil-rights movement eyed his appointees with grave skepticism. Not only did the 11-person commission abound with the most conventional of politicians—including its chairman, Illinois Governor Otto Kerner—but a mere two of them were black. Racial militants might have tolerated that paltry number of seats had they been occupied by...

Philadelphia’s newly minted district attorney, Larry Krasner, was meeting constituents in a packed church in West Philadelphia earlier this month to discuss his plans for the job. The meeting was unique in that it quickly revealed to community members what local civic leaders and officials have already learned about Krasner: He is making good on his promise to revolutionize the job of district attorney and, in the process, offering an extraordinary experiment in criminal justice reform at...

Even at MIT, no one’s been able to create a computer as powerful as the brain of a baby. “They’re better at doing this fast learning from one or two examples than any computer algorithm we have right now,” MIT graduate student Julia Leonard said. “That’s a big interest here — everyone’s like, ‘We want a computer to learn like a baby.’ ” Leonard was curious about how babies learn too, so she gathered up more than 200 to analyze their genius brains. Specifically, she was interested in studying...

Last week I returned to Amherst. It’s been years since I was there, the time we met. I was hoping that you’d show up again; I even looked for you, but you didn’t appear. I remember you proudly repped N.Y.C. during the few minutes we spoke, so I suspect you’d moved back or maybe you were busy or you didn’t know I was in town. I have a distinct memory of you in the signing line, saying nothing to anyone, intense. I assumed you were going to ask me to read a manuscript or help you find an...

Place matters. It was spring break of 1993 – my senior year of high school – and I was driving back from Virginia Beach with three close friends. We passed signs for the University of Delaware. I asked if we could take a quick detour to see the campus. The one request literally changed the course of my life – forever. University of Delaware in Spring It was late in April and I had been accepted to UD but never set foot in the town of Newark, DE. Little did I know it would be the campus of my...

https://medium.com/@drjimwalters/dear-trauma-informed-teacher-75d3df9f4be4

Writing in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, a research team, led by senior author William S. Kremen, PhD, professor of psychiatry and co-director of the Center for Behavior Genetics of Aging at UC San Diego School of Medicine, found that major adverse events in life, such as divorce, separation, miscarriage or death of a family member or friend, can measurably accelerate aging in the brains of older men, even when controlling for such factors as cardiovascular risk, alcohol consumption,...

Join the National Pediatric Practice Community on ACEs (NPPC) on Wednesday, April 25 at 12:00 PM PST for a Q&A session and an exploration of its new member website, which provides a wide range of resources to help pediatric practices make the case and implement screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). NPPC is an initiative of the Center for Youth Wellness.

Building Community Resilience in DC RSVP & join us to discuss local work to build a resilient nation in DC! On Thursday, April 19 th , Building Community Resilience (BCR) will convene local partners - including from DC's Chief Resilience Officer from the Office of the City Administrator, the Early Childhood Innovation Network , legislative staff from the DC Council Committee on Health, Mary’s Center , and others - to describe local resilience work being done through programs, practice...